Stephan is the owner of Fly Cape Town Paragliding. He is an avid tandem, competition and aerobatics paragliding pilot He loves to share the joy of paragliding flight with anyone who is keen...He is also a qualified paragliding instructor and a paragliding endurance athlete.

This is the first installment on a series on risk.

The original was written for SA Mountain Sports and appeared in their December 2007 edition. I have edited it, slightly, to include paragliding which I am learning the trade-craft of. Incidentally, I speed-ride these days as well.

Rock-Climbing

A ship is safe in harbor, but that is not what ships are for – William Shedd

A little while back some bloke flew a sky-diving rig off of the cliffs to the left of Platteklip gorge on Table Mountain, something that had apparently done a few times before. For semantics sake, its important to note that he was not BASE jumping but rather speed-flying. I have jealously watched a speed-rider in action taking a very direct (and vertical) route between ski runs at a resort called Grand Montets in Chamonix. I say jealous because it certainly looked like immense FUN  this ability to cross all, and ANY terrain vertical drops included!

On this particular occasion, on Table Mountain, a semi-inflated canopy caused him to drop a little faster than intended, depositing him in a heap on a ledge some 30 metres down. Fortunately there was someone filming the flight who was thus able to alert rescue services, who eventually carried the injured man out, under some trying conditions, as the weather continued deteriorating.

Ive chosen this incident purely because it highlights a few important themes very well. Action, Consequence, Motivation and Reward. It is fair to assume that the majority of you reading this, climb [or paraglide] to some degree and as such share a passion for the vertical and all that goes with it  challenge, camaraderie, exclusivity and the ever-present knowledge that danger lurks. For some, danger is the lure, for others it is a by product of the undertaking but for ALL of us we must remember that for every action (in our field of play) there is an associated potential risk, a potential reward, a consequence and for all of these there needs to be motivation.

Added into the mix, and again diluting the cocktail that is extreme sports [into which many include climbing/paragliding] are subtle nuances of style, variables specific to the undertaking and variables specific to the individual. Obviously free-soloing carries more risk than sport-climbing, and likewise climbing choss is more risky than solid granite. However the greatest variable in the entire equation remains the individual:

how they assess the variables relating to style, route, conditions, etc

how they handle unexpected change, pressure and consequence

are they capable of even visualizing the variables, and particularly are they competent at seeing ALL of the potential eventualities

are they capable of objectively matching personal competence with the objective of the day, under the conditions of the day.

Remember that what is risky for some, may not be risky to others. In fact, it is often quite the opposite  Dean Potter linking The Nose (El Cap), with the North-West Face (Half Dome), alone and in less than 24hrs is, arguably, LESS risky than a pair of wanna-be sport climbers at a sport crag without any instruction or previous experience. Likewise Chrigel Maurer taking off in the lee of strong mountain winds is, arguably, less risky than a new pilot at a new site, unsupervised, even in ideal conditions.

This is simply because experience is a factor as imperative as desire, and affords the individual bear in mind that of all the variables, the human variable is the most adaptable and more often than not the area that offers the most user-input to change  the ability to adapt, to lessen the risk.

But how does one acquire the necessary experience without first being ignorant and naive?

If we accept that all of our [climbing/paragliding] exploits carry some form of risk, and ergo consequence and we can safely assume, also, that the reward is directly linked to the challenge of the undertaking, and to a varying degree the associated risk then all that remains is motivation. Right? And as long as the motivation is pure, then the risk can be justified. Following on from that, and when judgment is passed, whether we succeed or fail should be immaterial. Likewise the relationship between the nature of the undertaking (and its associated level of risk), and the individuals capability should be equally irrelevant because if the undertaking is bigger than the experience, then it will be educational, alternatively if the two are well matched then the experience will be a dual of tradecraft, an expression in creativity. Both have their place, as they are symbiotic, and both should be encouraged  one cannot exist without the other.

You cannot walk before you can crawl. So why then, in the case of the pilot, was criticism so harshly passed? Surely we should all be afforded the benefit of being judged according to our intent and not on the results!!

Risk is all around. Occasionally we go looking for it (sometimes unwittingly). The next time, before you pass judgment on others using your own degree of acceptable risk, remember that what they are doing is an expression art if you will, and it is intrinsically part of who we are, and what we do. In fact individual expression should be encouraged. We have a right to risk – provided that the motivation for the undertaking is pure.

What is Pure motivation to you? Are you always true to it?

If you wait until youre sure its right, youll probably never do much of anything – Win Borden

Stephan is the owner of Fly Cape Town Paragliding. He is an avid tandem, competition and aerobatics paragliding pilot He loves to share the joy of paragliding flight with anyone who is keen...He is also a qualified paragliding instructor and a paragliding endurance athlete.

Sometimes the best way to get your hit is to light a flame and stoke the fire.

freebase. A method of inhaling drugs by holding a flame under a metal spoon

– Urban dictionary

Years ago, some days before Lisa landed in a broken heap on my sleeping bag at the base of a wall deep in the Hex River valley after multiple cliff-strikes during a B.A.S.E jump, she had showed me footage of a skydiver impacting the tarmac whilst still fighting to rid his canopy of riser-twist. As a professional camera-man on assignment the footage was P.O.V shot old-school on a VHS camcorder, long before the GoPro craze. My memory adds film grain to match the stark living quarters of a dirtbag skydivers lounge floor. Eating cheap Chinese, sitting on cushions on the floor of her apartment I remember being taken aback at the whole scenario but, mostly, his calm, silent, focus on fixing the situation  right up to point of impact.

Lisa was showing me a glimpse of her world, almost as a badge of credence, a statement to the brutally unforgiving world of defying gravity, willingly. I remember the pilot, I think his name was Dougs, pulling his pilot-chute, the wild jerk as the canopy opens ripping him from a horizontal free falling body position to a vertical one. The next view was of riser-twist, and he calmly, silently goes about trying to un-twist. This seems to go on for an eternity, and then the ground arrives, rather abruptly (he was still looking up, focused on the risers), and the camera is stationary against the tarmac seconds later feet run into the frame and its clear he is being attended to. Miraculously he lived to jump again.

In late March 15 I had the opportunity to use a cutaway-to-B.A.S.E acro paragliding harness in Chamonix. I do not fly acro, but the idea seemed like a lot of fun  fly a paraglider until over ones landing area, while 150-200m above ground. Then cut-away from your perfectly fine wing and in so doing have a B.A.S.E canopy deploy automatically fly B.A.S.E canopy to the landing. What could go wrong?

Mike Muldoon phoned late in the afternoon of my last day in the valley to say hed finished paragliding for the day and I should bring my wing  quite understandable that he didnt want to have to fetch his wing out of a tree or risk it getting wrapped around a buss as it made its own way earthward, after being unceremoniously ditched in the cut-away. The fact that the largest wing that I had with me was my Ozone XxLite 16, a single-skin lightweight (it weighs 1.2kg) mountain wing was a little concerning (to me).

Michael, Richard (a local instructor) and I met at the bottom ski lift of Brevent at 16:00. Last lift was at 16:30. A time-pressured explanation of how to connect the B.A.S.E-harness correctly (I learned that if I forgot to connect the deploy-cord then Id cut away a perfectly good wing, watch it float off as I plummet  without the B.A.S.E canopy deploying) ensued.

Richard:  when youre flying youre sitting. So just prior to cut-away, reach down, grab the reserve handle so that you have it in hand should the B.A.S.E not deploy

Seemed logical.

Me: Mike, how high up are the toggles on the B.A.S.E risers? Will I be able to reach the right hand toggle?

Mike:  uhhh, not sure. Time to go, remember the lower you cut-away the better the chance of collecting your main wing later enjoy

Ill admit to the solitude of the cabin-ride gave a pretty serious feeling to the whole thing, I figured that there was a less than even chance of the XxLite deploying the B.A.S.E canopy, a 1 in 5 chance I couldnt reach the toggle and a less than even chance of then being able to throw the reserve. Not great odds, but hey  its like asking the prettiest girl in the bar for her number, sometimes the risk is worth the reward.

Laying out on the SW take-off, a gentle wind came over-the-back, forcing a move to the SE take-off. Felix Rodrigues was on launch, and he was super excited (and animated) that I was going to pull the red handle  nothing like celebrity pressure to get underway. I gave my best impersonation of a nonchalant French shrug, and asked him to just watch my wing as I ran it off in zero wind.

The XxLite is an exciting wing to fly at the best of times, flying out knowing I was about to cut-away from it seemed to make it feel completely safe  certainly the least dumb thing of the afternoon. Four or five 360s got me to my desired (guestimated) flight level, a quick look to check that I was above the edge of the LZ, right hand down to grab the reserve handle, left hand to the cut-away toggle, deep breath pull!

Like most things done for the first time, things happened rather fast  accentuated by the brains inability to predict the sequence of events so it all seeming to happen simultaneously. There was the stomach-churning falling sensation as my main wing and I parted company, followed by the rush of air and then a jerk, followed by a secondary bump. My first image is looking up at the blue of the B.A.S.E canopy, so bringing my hands up in search of the toggles focused my vision on the risers  complete with riser-twist!

Id seen this film before.

I was reasonably certain that I had seconds to sort that out, and a quick glance earthward to give a perspective confirmed that earth was, in fact, still below me inbound. Contrary to the initial new-thing-time-scale, add some real and immediate threat and like most things done under pressure with consequence, time seemed to stand still. The irony of the paradox was lost on me while I was fighting with the riser-twist for what seemed like a LONG time. Eventually I was concerned that I MUST be close to impact  yet I became curiously aware that there was no sense of ground-rush, no rush of air, no sense of impending doom. At the same time I was beginning to question why my B.A.S.E canopy appeared to be at an angle to the vertical rather than directly overhead  almost as if it were in front of me. Beginning a process of elimination started with a glance over my right shoulder, which revealed a very real, and perfectly deployed reserve canopy.

Total time between cut-away and this point was 3 seconds.

If you play these sorts of games long enough, you learn not to question the how/why while in the moment but, rather, to get on and deal with sorting the shit out  time is, usually, of the essence. So I set about recovering the B.A.S.E canopy, while the primary concern shifted to my likely area of touch-down  under a steer-less reserve I suddenly had very little say in where I might end up church spire, road tree? At some point I realized that I could use the B.A.S.E canopy as a steering spinnaker, and guided my way back toward the LZ, touching down gracefully and not even requiring a roll, on the far corner of the LZ.

It is often said that; one must be careful what one wishes for, you might get it. There was an awful lot of neuro-input in a very short space of time  exactly what I was looking for, although not quite in the exact manner anticipated!

Its a, seemingly, contradictory way to appreciate life  by risking it  but it is the purest, most honest medium that I know. To see things without the clutter, and noise, of life, sometimes it is necessary to force the detox.

Beer certainly had a sweet taste that evening J

Postscript:

Risk is a funny thing. It is ever-present, it is run from and it is sought. The challenge is to match the variables (controllable and otherwise) to the level of acceptable risk, for the individual. It is a right, but it is the individuals responsibility to understand, as best as possible, the possible permutations and associated possible consequences.

For whatever (personal) reasons, I judged the reward worth the risk of a number of unknowns  I was not sure the main wing would deploy the B.A.S.E canopy, I was unsure that, even if the B.A.S.E canopy deployed, that I would be able to reach the right hand toggle, and I was reasonably certain that I wouldnt be able to throw the secondary reserve if needed.

But I chose to expose myself to the situation, to learn, to experience and to remind myself of my ability to deal with serious situations, to have the mind cleared of cobwebs and self-doubt. To remind myself what it is to live.

Aside:

One of the primary gains of any endeavor is the knowledge gain. In retrospect, the real live-play went like this:

– cut-away, resulting in B.A.S.E canopy deployment

– the B.A.S.E canopy risers attach to the harness in the same way that skydiving rig does  from the TOP of the shoulders

– the B.A.S.E deploy changed my orientation from a sitting (paragliding) position to a standing (skydiving) position

– this change happened far to quickly for me to release the reserve handle. As my right-hand reach is shorter, this removed the reserve handle (unintentionally)

– a moment or two later the reserve fell out of its container (I was trying to untwist-risers at this point) and inflated  dominating proceedings

Obvious in hindsight, less so in the moment. Better preparation (like a scenario planning session the night before) may well have mitigated this.

Stephan is the owner of Fly Cape Town Paragliding. He is an avid tandem, competition and aerobatics paragliding pilot He loves to share the joy of paragliding flight with anyone who is keen...He is also a qualified paragliding instructor and a paragliding endurance athlete.

Fear is a powerful force that can stop us from pursuing some of our dreams and goals. The English dictionary defines fear as “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous.” This tells us that what we fear may not always be real, but it is just a belief in our minds triggered by a certain emotion. When challenged by any form of fear we only have one of two decisions to make, and that is, we either get the courage to face that fear and overcome it; or we can give in to it and allow that fear to defeat us.

Most people never find the courage to face their fears, and the problem is that if you don’t overcome those fears, you will probably never rise above them. Overcoming fear is a skill that anyone can tap into. Here are some ways in which to deal with fear, including your fear of paragliding.

1) Have positive thoughts

Every battle takes place and is won in the mind. It’s important to think about a positive outcome to your fear. If you’re thinking about your first paragliding flight for instance, imagine yourself being very successful instead of failing on your flight. Whenever fear strikes, flush it out of your mind with positive thoughts about the outcome.

2) Just do it

Someone who is brave enough to take on something bigger than them does not mean that at that moment no fear grips their heart; it just means they have made a decision to tackle that fear. Once you have pictured yourself paragliding successfully, the next step is to just do it! Instead of thinking several times about the matter – just do it, take that flight. Now may be the right time to take that paragliding flight you’ve been putting off.

3) Find inspiration

Finding someone who struggled with the fear you have, but managed to rise above it can motivate you tremendously. Get in touch with the person who inspires you if you can, and find out how they overcame that fear. You can also read books on the subject, and see what wonders it will do for you.

4) Learn to control your breathing

Not only is this one of the easiest mechanics, but it is also one of the simplest and most powerful ways to overcome fear. Through breathing, you are able to calm the panic that rises inside of you when fear kicks in, and in doing so, it can set you free from the grip of fear. Learn to take control of your breathing.

5) See yourself victorious

This one might be similar to the first point, but that’s because they work together. And we saved it for last because it’s also one of the most powerful mind exercises. The thoughts you allow to fill your heart and mind are what you become. It’s important to see yourself overcoming your fear; if you don’t see the victory in your mind first, you may never see it in reality.